Hot Lips Page
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Multiple issues Template:Infobox musical artist
Oran Thaddeus "Hot Lips" Page<ref name=weeks/> (January 27, 1908 – November 5, 1954)<ref name="Dead"/> was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist.<ref name=aaj>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Page was a member of Walter Page's Blue Devils, Artie Shaw's Orchestra and Count Basie's Orchestra, and he worked with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Ida Cox.<ref name="Dead">Thedeadrockstarsclub.com Retrieved April 30, 2019.</ref> He was one of the five musicians booked for the opening night at Birdland with Charlie Parker in 1949.
Life and careerEdit
Oran Thaddeus Page was born in Dallas, Texas, United States,<ref name="LarkinGE">Template:Cite book</ref> to a schoolteacher and musician mother. He moved with his mother to Corsicana where he began attending Corsicana High School and later Texas College while also working at the oilfields.<ref name=aaj/> His earliest gigs were in circuses and minstrel shows while also backing such blues singers as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ida Cox.<ref name=aaj/> Page's main trumpet influence was Louis Armstrong, though throughout his career he cited other local trumpeters, including Harry Smith (Kansas City) and Benno Kennedy (San Antonio) as being early influences.
In the mid-1920s, while still a teenager, Page is believed to have appeared with Troy Floyd and His Orchestra in San Antonio, Texas, and with Eddie and Sugar Lou, a dance band headquartered in Tyler, Texas, though no documentation has been unearthed to support his presence in either band. He also claimed to have appeared around 1925 with a band in Shreveport, Louisiana, known as Goog and His Jazz Babies and with a band in New Orleans known as French's Jazz Orchestra, though no documentation has been discovered.<ref name=weeks/>
In 1926, he caught the eye of the bassist Walter Page (no relation) who had recently assumed leadership of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> It is believed that Oran Page joined the Blue Devils circa 1927, though no known documentation exists to support his presence with the band until the fall of 1928. He played and toured with the Blue Devils until early 1931, when he joined the Bennie Moten Orchestra, the leading dance band of Kansas City.<ref name="LarkinGE"/>
Though not a regular member of the band, Page appeared as a vocalist, emcee and hot trumpet soloist with Count Basie's Reno Club orchestra, after the Moten band finally disbanded upon that leader's sudden death in April 1935.<ref name=aaj/> Page embarked upon a solo career during this period, playing with small pick up bands from Kansas City, where he had moved in early 1931.<ref name=weeks/>
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The Reno Club, in downtown Kansas City, had a floor show, which included Page and vocalist Jimmy Rushing. Basie's band was just starting to build their reputation, but in the summer of 1936—on the eve of Basie's national success—and at the beckoning of Louis Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser, Page decided to pursue a solo career. He moved to New York City in December 1936.<ref name=aaj/>
Page's career as a bandleader had an auspicious start, with sold-out appearances and an extended run at Harlem's Smalls Paradise in the summer of 1937, but by 1939 he was struggling to maintain a regular working band. Nonetheless, he led several bands and combos of his own, particularly on New York's 52nd Street, where he appeared from 1938 or 1939, and in many venues in Harlem. Page toured extensively throughout the southern United States, and throughout the northeast and Canada at the head of as many as 13 different big bands during the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared briefly with Bud Freeman's Orchestra in 1938, and was a featured vocalist and hot soloist with Artie Shaw's Symphonic Swing Orchestra in 1941 and 1942,<ref name="LarkinGE"/> with whom he recorded more than 40 sides.<ref name=weeks/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
From 1929, he made over 200 recordings, most as a leader, for Bluebird, Vocalion, Decca and Harmony Records, among others. His band backed the singer Wynonie Harris on the session that produced the hit "Good Rocking Tonight", though Page was never credited as the leader. He was the leader of the house band at the Apollo Theater during the early 1940s. Page was known as "Mr. After Hours" to his many friends for his ability to take on challengers in late-night jam sessions, and he was recorded at Harlem's Minton's Playhouse in 1941 playing in a proto-bebop style. He recorded for the Mezzrow-Bechet Septet (on two consecutive dates in 1945, as Pappa Snow White,<ref name=pappa>Price, Sammy (1995), What Do They Want?: A Jazz Autobiography, Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 105. Template:ISBN.</ref> with Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet, Jimmy Blythe, Jr.,<ref name=pappa/> Danny Barker, Pops Foster,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Sid Catlett, and on the second session with Cousin Joe on vocals.<ref name=pappa/>)
Page recorded duets with Pearl Bailey on "The Hucklebuck" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in 1949.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> He traveled to Europe in 1949 and appeared at Salle Pleyel in the first international jazz festival there, and returned to Europe at least twice for extended tours in the early 1950s.Template:Citation needed
He was one of the most flexible of trumpeters, demonstrating a broad tone and a wide range on the instrument. He is considered by many to be one of the founders of what came to be known as rhythm and blues.<ref name=weeks/>
Page died in New York in November 1954, aged 46.<ref name="Dead"/>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Oran "Hot Lips" Page scrapbook, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University.